Recent activities include: hey, we went _out_!

B. said she and B. (her fiance) would come watch our kids so we could go out on our fifth wedding anniversary. As a gift! And they brought a Very Cute Card, too.

So off we went to ZuZu's where we had the platter and I had two side cars. Yum! Walked around a bit and then back home. We thought about attempting a show at Tommy Doyle's where a friend's band was playing, but decided the timing just wasn't quite right. A. was perfectly happy hanging out with B & B. T. was already asleep when they came over. We may do this again. :-)

_Cast in Courtlight_, Michelle Sagara (part of a kindle bundle)

This second entry in the Chronicles of Elantra continues to massage the tragedy that formed Elianne/Kaylin Neya and, Bonus! She gets yet another name, this time a NAME. Teela, an elf, er, Barrarin, fuck it, she's an elf, is called to the High Court for the leoswuld, a ritual that is The Big Deal in the elven court: transfer of power from the main male elf and his sister/wife the Consort to a new main male elf and sister/wife. Or whatever. Kaylin is worried about Teela and trying to horn in on the action. Evarrim, the elf/mage who is curious about Kaylin, is also involved. Oh, and there's a sick elf that needs to be helped, so Teela brings Kaylin in for that. Kaylin, meanwhile, is chasing off magic teachers, and eventually gets the Dragon Sanabalis, who Is Up to Her Tricks and insists on her learning a thing or two and proceeds to annoy her (and trick her, as well).

In other words, a second book in a series. Some new characters, but mostly old characters getting some more backstory and shading to their personality. A bit more about the characters-that-are-the-races: the elves are there to hold back some seriously scary bad, and have sacrificed the majority of their immortal members to the cause (which is fairly disturbing, actually, but it's Luna, so no surprise there). The one thing that keeps Kaylin from being a complete Mary Sue (utterly lame fantasy wish-fulfillment character who solves every problem but is otherwise completely uninteresting) is the scale of the problems she is involved with -- well, that and the fact that she's got lots of powerful allies who she needs to get anything done at all.

I'm starting to think of the Mark from Nightshade (remember the spidery blue flower on her cheek? No, the cheek you _see_) as her Star Trek communicator. Or maybe one of the people she gets to call to ask for help on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Whenever she's somewhere totally inaccessible and stuck, she can always request assistance from Nightshade, or, now, the Lord of the West March. Will Severn be calling her in future books? Will she be "seeing" through Severn's eyes and "listening" through his ears? Oh, I'm sure we'll be finding out soon; after all, there are three books in this bundle.